Our RV Adventures

When Jan was sitting outside the other day she got some great bird shots, including two we haven’t seen here before.

One was a White Ibis.

I think the last time we saw Ibis was at Busch Gardens in Tampa, FL in 2009.

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The second one was a Snowy Egret

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And for the first time this year, we saw our resident Great Blue Heron.

Although we’d heard he was still here, we were beginning to get worried that something had happened to him.

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A little later, Jan filled her bird feeder and within a few minutes everyone showed up. We’ve got the Monk’s Parakeets, Red-Winged Blackbirds, Grackles, and a few little sparrows thrown in.

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And this is what happens when you say “BOO!”.

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As far as today goes, Jan and I left the rig about 1:30, heading for Brandi’s. Tonight is Bingo night and she was just going to hang out at Brandi’s while I took care of some errands and clients. That way I wouldn’t have to drive back down to pick her up.

Leaving Jan, my first stop was at EPO (Electronic Parts Outlet) for some new banana plugs and jacks to repair the extension cable for my Brake Buddy’s Alert Monitor. The Brake Buddy is what handles the braking in the truck when we’re towing it behind the rig.

Then after a quick stop at a client’s office, I drove up I-45 to the Dodge dealer. I wanted to order a new keylock switch for my truck’s door. The original one had broken internally, and wouldn’t turn off the alarm when I unlocked the door. I have to put the key in the ignition and turn it on before the alarm will shut up.

I’ve been waiting to get this fixed before I install my new power window unit. Hopefully it will be here by Friday.

My new stop was a clients in Pasadena to work on a problem for here. It took a little fiddling, but I finally got it fixed.

But the time I finished there, it was time to head back to Brandi’s to pick up Jan. But when I got there, I found we had plenty to time because Piper wasn’t going with us tonight, so we didn’t have to pick her up and we had some time to kill.

While we were still there, Lowell’s sister, Sherry, showed up and Jan invited her to go play bingo with her. We ended up having dinner at Dickinson Seafood in Dickinson (where else?) Boy, do they have good fried catfish.

Our friend Maria picked up Jan and Sherry at the restaurant, and I headed back up to Webster to my client’s office. I’m fighting the usual problems of trying to network Windows 7 machines and Windows XP machines together.

I’m sorry, but Win 7 does not work and play well with others!

I picked up Jan and Sherry about 10 pm, and after dropping Sherry off at Brandi’s, we finally got back home about 11pm after a really long day.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a little slower, but probably not.

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Thought for the Day:

Common sense isn’t very common anymore.

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Today was a fun day for us.

After a relaxing morning of coffee and conversation, we headed out about noon to our first stop, lunch at King Food. Then after a delicious meal of Hot & Sour Soup and Extra Spicy Chicken in Hot Garlic Sauce, we drove up I-45 to the AMC Cinema 30 for a 2pm movie, in this case, Twilight – Breaking Dawn, Pt 1. Jan’s a big fan of both the books and the movies, and though I’ve never read any of the books, the movies are pretty good.

Of course we used RunPee to check out good  times to make a bathroom run. RunPee also lets us know if there other scenes after the credits, and in this case, there was.

The movie was really good, and we’re both looking forward to Part II.

Leaving the movie a little after 4pm, we stopped off at my client’s office for a few minutes to be sure everything was working with the new equipment I installed last night.

Finding everything OK and everyone happy, we headed down I-45 to Dickinson to have dinner at Monterey’s Little Mexico, before getting back to the rig around 6pm.

It was nice to have a day pretty much to ourselves.

In addition to the Top Ten Scenic Drives in the United States, I’ve reposted one that ought to be high on the list, Bar Harbor, ME and the loop road around Acadia National Park.

Check it out.

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Bar Harbor and Bubbles . . .

Originally posted on August 24, 2009

Today we made the 50 mile trip down to the Bar Harbor area to see some of Maine’s Atlantic coast. The drive was pretty uneventful, except for a 25 minute wait right outside of Ellsworth for road work. Luckily, by the time we came home they were finished for the day.

Right after we got into the Bar Harbor area, we stopped for lunch at a small seafood place called Gateway Diner and had lobster rolls and sweet potato fries, and then split a pumpkin crumb pie with ice cream. Great food, but unfortunately for me, the place also had a gift shop with a lot of moose stuff.

Mucho $$$$ later, we stopped at the Bar Harbor Visitor’s Center right down the street to check out a tip that the lady at the diner mentioned about a loop road through Acadia National Park.

Getting directions, we headed out around the loop.

The first place we stopped was a scenic viewpoint overlooking Frenchman Bay, and this was just the start of a lot of beautiful scenery.

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The dock area on the right side of the picture is Bar Harbor.

The next stop was Sand Beach.

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Although the beach was closed today, apparently people really swim her, even though the water temp usually doesn’t get much out of the 50′s.

And some of the other views in the area are amazing.

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Leaving the Sand Beach area, we drove down to a spot that unfortunately has been in the news lately.

The area is called Thunder Hole because of the noise of the waves when the right conditions makes the sounds reverberate and sound like thunder.

The area is also popular because you can go out on a rock that juts out into the Atlantic ocean and stand where the waves come in over your feet when the tide is right.

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This point is where about 20 people were smashed by a 25 foot wave caused by a combination of high tide and Hurricane Bill. 11 people were hospitalized with broken bones, and 3 people, a 7 year old girl, her father, and an unrelated 12 year old girl, were swept out to sea in the 55 degree water.

The 12 year old girl and the father were pulled from the water by the Coast Guard, but his 7 year old daughter was later found dead.

When we were there, the area was still closed off, but a ranger said the waves have to get over the top of the handrail before it’s closed off.

Leaving the area, we drove further around the loop to more fantastic scenery.

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Toward the end of the 27 miles we passed the Jordan Pond Inn, a restaurant we had been told about and thought we would later have dinner there.

Leaving the loop, we headed over to Bar Harbor to look around. The first thing Jan found, wouldn’t you know it, was a couple of moose stuff gift shops.

She really wanted this one, but we couldn’t figure out how to get it in the rig.

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So she settled for trying on the latest in moose wear.

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Walking down the hill we were able to look out over Bar Harbor itself.

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And of course the many flower beds everywhere.

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One of the ships I noticed in the harbor was a beautiful 4-masted schooner called the “Margaret Todd”.

And rather than being an old ship, she’s only about 10 years. She was launched in 1998 and built to give Windjammer cruises to the tourists.

Here’s what she looks like under full sail.

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Before heading back over to Jordan Pond Inn for dinner, we drove down to the end of Bridge St. to take a look.

When it’s low tide, a sandbar is revealed that extends over to Bar Island in the distance, allowing people to walk over to the island. Unfortunately, at high tide it just looks like a boat launch ramp. Timing is everything!

Our dinner at Jordan Pond Inn was fantastic and we had a great meal. The restaurant was really something,

and the scenery was something else.

The view from the outside dining are is of an island called “The Bubbles”

Of course, the locals call it by another ‘B’ word, but I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out what the word is.

After a really great day, we finally headed home about 7 pm. Luckily, the morning’s road work was over, so we were home in about an hour.

Today is our last day here in Bangor. Tomorrow we head about 130 miles northeast to Houlton, ME, which is about 2 miles from the Canadian border.

We’ll stay there for three or four days, cleaning up some loose ends before we head over the border.

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Thought for the Day:

Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied.

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